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If
it hadn't been for Abbot Kinney's asthma, Venice may never have been
founded. Kinney, born 1850 in Brookside, New Jersey, was
on a three year trip around the
world when a snowstorm prevented his return to the east coast. He journeyed,
instead, to Sierra Madre and was so impressed by the climate he developed
a citrus ranch called Kinneloa.

After his marriage in 1884, Kinney
began
purchasing land to the south with Francis Ryan. The partners developed
Ocean Park with a walk pier and a country
club.
A streetcar line was extended to the site.

After Ryan's untimely death in
1898, and a succession of partners with whom Kinney couldn't
agree, it was
decided that the land speculator would toss a
coin and
the winner would choose which half of the district would be his. When
Kinney won the toss, he startled the other four partners by choosing
the barren,
marshy property. Kinney soon announced that his sand dunes and
marshland would
soon be a cultural city patterned after Venice, Italy. The public laughed
and dubbed
the plan "Kinney's Folly".

They stopped laughing when trenches for
canals were dug and Venetian-patterned buildings began to spring
up. By July 4, 1905, Venice-of-America officially
opened with a wonderful pier and exciting attractions: Italian gondoliers
poling their
boats down fairy-lit canals, a concert orchestra supplying music
that could be heard nearly all over town, camel rides, exotic hotels
catering to the
best tastes
and a miniature railroad circling the entire scene.

The cultural diversion
never flourished in Venice. The public came to ride the
camels and the little train and to see the sideshow. The Doge of
Venice-of
America
had built a cultural Renaissance by the sea.